DVD review: 'Garbo: The Spy'
Woody Allen’s history-hopping chameleon “Zelig” has nothing on the real-life cipher Juan Pujol Garcia, a shadowy Spanish double agent who changed the course of World War II with his amazing espionage exploits, which are compelling detailed in the documentary thriller “Garbo: The Spy.”
This insanely clever and amazing true-life story from documentarian Edmon Roch reveals a masterly tale of intrigue and deception that might come as a surprise even to the most ardent World War II buff. It’s relates the audacious exploits of a freelance spy who wormed his way into the good graces of both the British and the Nazi intelligence services and proved such a great actor that he was given the codename “Garbo” (after the enigmatic actress Greta Garbo).
While, in truth, Pujol’s loyalties were to the Allied cause, he was so convincing to both sides (the Nazis codenamed him “Alaric”) that he was awarded an honorary knighthood by the British and the Iron Cross by the Nazis. And as Roch’s film relates, Garbo’s greatest triumph came in Operation Fortitude, in which, though a tangled web of made-up operatives and misinformation, he misled the Germans about the exact date and location of the D-Day invasion.
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